Through the Abyss
by Discord1
Summary: An A/U T/P epic all about the obstacles love can overcome. When earth is bombarded by a violent meteor shower, Trunks and Pan lose everything. The only thing they have left to cling to is each other.


Through the Abyss  
By: Discord  
  
A/N: I swear, I don't like punishing Trunks or Pan, I just happen to put them in mega angsty fics. For those of you who read "When the Sky Wept", this story focuses on the same trio, Vegeta, Trunks and Pan and the tribulations they face after their world is bombarded by meteors. Now despite what you may think from this first chapter, this fic IS a romance, and all about the obstacles love can overcome (I know, that last bit makes me sound like I'm a hopeless romantic or something but oh well, bite me). Anyway, I'm done, on with the fic!  
  
  
(1)  
Assassins from space  
***  
  
She staggered among mountains of smoking rubble, ignoring the searing pain of her battered body as a strong wind raked through her open wounds. It gusted with an uncaring ferocity rivaled only by the explosion that had torn through earth's skies minutes before. Dazed and confused, the girl stumbled across debris of her house, running into crumpled piles of demolished walls and tripping on burnt remains of furniture. Looking for her parents, the lost child roamed through the wreckage, calling out their names.  
  
"Mom! Dad!" The girl spun in circles, her black hair whipping around her face as she searched with fevered eyes. The blood ran freely from a large gash near her hairline and it dropped down into her eyes, blotting her vision with red. The girl swayed as a round of convulsions overcame her body, wracking her beaten frame with uncontrollable spasms that coursed and pushed to an urgent hemorrhage choking up her lungs. The pain pounded out from her chest and jerked her breaths into labored attempts for inhalation. The child got to her knees and after several heaving coughs she vomited the blood that had been filling her punctured lungs. Rising shakily a moment later and wiping the corner of her mouth she continued her calls, undeterred by the immediate threat of fatal internal bleeding.  
  
In her new world of hurt the evidence could be plainly seen that she had suffered severe physical trauma from a mysterious explosion, and that mental scars were soon to be added to the list. Tottering on an invisible edge of stability, the survivor needed only one little push to send her falling into the pit of oblivion. She could feel her resolve weakening against the heavy silence of death that filled her ears with it's awful, unbalanced sound. Years of such future torment were already wringing her mind of common sense and she called for her parents again, in frantic, mangled cries.  
  
The girl had woken minutes after being knocked unconscious by a part of roof that had caved in on her. All alone she had struggled from the wreckage and now ranged across jagged paths in the upturned ground. The last thing she had seen before darkness set in was a brilliant flash of light, followed by a tremendous crash that made her eardrums bleed. The child had been anchored to the ground by the fallen roof and it had saved her life. Winds fueled by a tremendous impact power had raced at unbelievable speeds into her house, tearing apart the stone walls and lifting everything into the air, including her parents.  
  
Now, her fear for them was the only thing that kept her moving. Dark stains seeped across her gray shirt just below a rib and she limped under all the pain. The girl pulled the remnants of her favorite orange bandana from her hair and stuffed it under her shirt to stop the bleeding. The rag did little to slow the red that leaked from her wounds but she didn't notice. All her concentration was focused on finding the two people who could make everything right again and take her away from these ruins. The two people who were her entire world.  
  
The deadened air was silent except for the child's random footsteps and sounds of her heavy, erratic breathing.   
  
After the initial impact and explosion that shook earth down to its very core, the resulting winds quickly spent themselves and dropped all the stolen cargo that they had lifted from the ground. At their departure, an utter stillness permeated throughout the butchered plain.  
  
The girl was the only source of movement amid the acres and acres of burning destruction, all the neighbors had been assaulted by the same fallen beast who had preyed upon her parents. Fields far from the original explosion, despite their distance, were scorched by fire, and trees she had climbed in the past were still alight in flame. Her home of fifteen years lay obliterated on top of a small hill and the entire area for miles around the blast zone was a smoking wasteland, charred black and barren. All vegetation had disintegrated at the instant of impact and only empty echoes and fading memories dotted the carnage of what her life had once been.   
  
Her house had fallen when the aftershocks hit. The hill it's foundations sat upon was miles from the crater but the might of earth's assailant had not spared her family. If the collision had been closer, nothing would have been left of her home and her body would have dusted away into the wind.  
  
The child resumed her frantic calls to her parents, unaware of what had caused the huge explosion, concentrating her efforts solely on finding someone to ask. Every time she cried out and there was no answer, terror grew and rose higher in her throat. The girl had eyes only for her mother and father and she scanned through the wreckage, looking for a hand reaching for help or a dark head of hair.  
  
The sun, unaffected by the traumatized earth, shone down through the haze of settling debris and made the dark-eyed survivor blink from its glare. She continued to wander through the smashed ruins, lifting rock slabs and black soot pillars, always calling and always looking. But her strength was beginning to falter, her resolve starting to crack. The child sunk to her knees and tears formed in the corners of her eyes.  
  
She looked around and the sight of her crumbled house filled her only view and snuffed the image of her parents from her mind. Nothing moved and there wasn't a trace of familiarity she could tie to. The girl's shoulders began to shake and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hug away the indescribable thought that she might be alone. 


End file.
